The cyber security threat landscape has evolved, attackers are more savvy and businesses are struggling to keep up with the frequency and level of sophistication of attacks.

It is this gap that global cyber security company Trellix, a specialist in open XDR (extended detection and response) technology, is positioning itself to address with new advanced research infrastructure and a channel-focused strategy, which includes a Unified Partner Program and expanded Security Innovation Alliance (SIA).

At the company’s Xpand Live 2022 event hosted in Las Vegas this week, the company reiterated the importance of its recently established Advanced Research Centre in advancing global threat intelligence.

The company said the Centre houses “hundreds of the world’s most elite security analysts and researchers” with the purpose to produce actionable real-time intelligence and threat indicators to help customers detect, respond and remediate the latest cybersecurity threats.

“The threat landscape is scaling in sophistication and potential for impact,” said Aparna Rayasam, Chief Product Officer, Trellix. “We do this work to make our digital and physical worlds safer for everyone. With adversaries strategically investing in talent and technical know-how, the industry has a duty to study the most combative actors and their methods to innovate at a faster rate.”

According to Trellix, its Advanced Research Centres has the cybersecurity industry’s most comprehensive charter “and is at the forefront of emerging methods, trends and actors across the threat landscape.”

Trellix Xtend

At Xpand Live 2022, Trellix also announced a new partner program - Trellix Xtend (to be officially launched early 2023) - which the company said is designed to increase profitability, engagement, and growth across its global partner ecosystem.

The company is busy with an aggressive campaign to entrench the value of XDR and used Xpand 2022 to announce new technology integrations to Trellix XDR through the SIA program to simplify the development of inter-operable security products for complex customer environments.

“Our unified partner program, Xtend, continues to reinforce our priority as a channel-first business,” said Britt Norwood, SVP, Global Channels & Commercial, Trellix. “We co-developed the Xtend program with our partners to create the right business model for deploying Trellix XDR. Partners can count on Trellix to help drive profitability for our partners and reward partner value.”

Growing alliance

Ten technology partners have affiliated with the Trellix SIA, including Tenable, which enables a risk-based view of a customer’s entire attack surface.

"The Trellix XDR risk score of an asset is automatically updated when vulnerabilities are shared from Tenable.io. This allows security analysts to quickly determine if a threat corresponds to a high-risk asset and enables them to respond faster via curated playbooks and orchestration," the company explained.

In addition to Tenable, Lineaje, Arista Networks, Keysight Ixia, Elevate Security, Sumo Logic, SecureX.ai, Okta, GreyNoise, and CPacketNetworks have joined the SIA program.

These new additions bring the ecosystem to over 800 partners integrated with Trellix XDR.

“Many of the partner programs we evaluate are developed with good intention but have become bloated and ineffective over time as the market evolves,” said Ryan Morris, President, Blackwood. “Trellix’s partner program is built to enable a premium partner experience with margins allowing us to deliver outcomes beyond customer expectation. The program is centred around the idea that long-term customer success is best enabled through the channel and we are appreciative of their commitment to collaboration in ways that directly benefit our customers.”

“No one security vendor can provide all of the technology needed in today’s ever-changing threat landscape,” said Matt McCormick, SVP, Business & Corporate Development, ThreatQuotient. “The open nature of Trellix XDR allows our joint customers to be resilient.”